The North Hempstead town council on Tuesday unanimously approved the required use of carbon monoxide detectors in places of public assembly.
In a continuation of a public hearing that began on April 1, council members amended their previous resolution to include detectors that provide digital readings of carbon monoxide levels that may not reach levels that trigger an alarm.
The North Hempstead building code defines places of assembly as those that accommodate up to 49 people. Places of public assembly accommodate 50 or more patrons. The town law will cover both.
“This way people will have the ability to see if the carbon monoxide is, in fact, increasing,” North Hempstead Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth said. “We don’t need to wait until bells and whistles go off.”
Neal Lewis, an attorney and environmental advocate who oversees the Sustainability Institute at Molloy College, suggested the council require the digital readers during the board’s last meeting.
Lewis said the council’s resolution involved health concerns as well as those pertaining to energy conservation and safety, citing New England Journal of Medicine statistics that attributes migraine headaches, dizziness and nausea as side effects of exposure to carbon dioxide.
Lewis presented the board with a four-page memorandum from the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health in support of the council’s resolution.
The committee, Lewis said, has supported carbon monoxide detectors that trigger an alarm at 50 parts per million. Most detectors set off an alarm at 70 parts per million.
“People have a right, if they’re experiencing symptoms that indicate a low level of carbon monoxide, to ask the question – do we have carbon monoxide at this workplace? – and at least those buildings would be subject to your action today,” he said.
Lewis said a carbon monoxide detector with a digital reader may have been able to save Steven Nelson, the manager of a Legal Sea Foods store in the Walt Whitman Shops in Huntington Station who in February died after he was reportedly overcome by carbon monoxide fumes.
According to reports, 27 other people were hospitalized and treated for carbon monoxide poisoning.
At a later Town of Brookhaven meeting, Nelson’s family had revealed he had been exposed to low levels of carbon monoxide long before the apparent leak in the store, Lewis said.
“Sometimes tragedies serve to identify deficiencies in the laws designed to help the public,” Lewis said.
In other developments:
• The council set public hearings for its May 13 meeting for proposals to build a four-story, 165-room hotel at the site of a former fitness club in Port Washington and for a full-service gas station and convenience store on Jericho Turnpike in Garden City Park.
• Council members approved a change in parking restrictions from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on school days near Herricks High School and adopted a No U-Turn ordinance for the nearby Hamilton Drive.
• The council also approved a $5,000 monetary gift from the Residents for a More Beautiful Port Washington to help revitalize a garden near the Port Washington Long Island Railroad station.
Councilwoman Dina De Giorgio (R-Port Washington) said the town had accepted a $5,000 gift from the community organization on April 1 for the same project, but its directors later found the project would cost more than they initially thought.
De Giorgio said the new garden would likely be ready by the middle of May.
